A typical conventional guided projectile includes a nose cone and a main casing (e.g., an artillery shell casing). The nose cone is capable of moving relative to the main casing and is thus capable of changing the direction of the projectile's trajectory while the projectile is in flight.
To effectuate movement of the nose cone relative to the main casing, the conventional guided projectile further includes a nose cone actuator having an actuator mount and a movable (or actuated) part which moves relative to the actuator mount. The actuator mount of the actuator connects to the main casing and the movable part of the actuator connects to the nose cone to enable pointing or articulating the nose cone relative to the main casing.
In some conventional guided projectile designs, the main casing and the nose cone are required to rotate relative to each other. For such designs, the entire nose cone actuator (i.e., the actuator mount and the movable part) rotates relative to the main casing so that the nose cone actuator can continue to point the nose cone in a particular targeted direction. That is, while the main casing rotates around both the actuator mount and the movable part of the nose cone actuator during flight, the actuator extends or retracts the movable part to properly articulate the nose cone at a particular angle relative to a center axis of the main casing thus controlling the direction of the guided projectile.